M4

 I had written in an earlier post the circumstances that led to my falling into the rabbit hole of fountain pens and inks. It was 2021, we were all bored out of our wits after a couple of years of staying indoors and I was losing my mind. The choice of this one vs. any other was part serendipity, part boredom and a whole lot of aspiration-meets-affordabilty. While the first year saw me just dipping my toes in very cautiously, I dived right into the rabbit hole in the second year and ordered a long list of pens. Of course, I had to temper my excitement in year-3 and be more conscious of what and why I pick pens to add to my collection.  The journey transpired just as expected and experienced by many others before me and I'd drawn inspiration, knowledge and advice from quite a few of them. For these and others that helped me along this journey - my sincerest thanks. I hope I can get down to writing a post listing all of them some day.  For today, here's my fountain pen coll...

“Those are not MY memories,” said the girl when someone asks her how she could bear to come to her ancestral home in Berlin, “after all they’ve done to your family here”. She’s a Jew visiting from Israel. I put my pen down and stared for a whole minute at my “memories” that I was trying to fill in a worn out journal; one that I’ve been struggling to keep up with in the recent past. One that nobody would ever read again- not even myself. I used to share stories on this blog a while ago. I thought they’d make me sound cool and smart, I guess. It’s been over 3 years since I wrote something not on slides and not for work, particularly in this blog. There was a story I started writing, but never saw the light of day, because I didn’t like the climax. Yes, the very climax that I wrote myself. So I printed myself a copy, tore up the last chapter and abandoned the rest of the pages in a dark corner somewhere. These 3 years have been eventful: I had stuck with one job all along, ...